Читать книгу At the Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding - India Grey - Страница 2

A self-confessed romance junkie, India Grey was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon^® writers’ guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she also gained a degree in English Literature from Manchester University, and, in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance, met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity, and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

Recent titles by the same author:

TAKEN FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE

MISTRESS: HIRED FOR THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLEASURE

THE ITALIAN’S CAPTIVE VIRGIN

THE ITALIAN’S DEFIANT MISTRESS

Dear Reader

When I was invited to write one of the books in Mills & Boon’s rugby series I was seriously thrilled. I grew up in a family where rugby was a passion, and from a very young age would go with my dad and my older brother to Murrayfield to watch Scotland internationals. Of course at the time I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate those magnificent, muscular men, but I guess they must have made a pretty lasting impression, because when I began to write my first Mills & Boon^® novel at the grand old age of thirteen it featured a hero who was a rugby player!

The book never got finished, and I’ve long since lost the manuscript (handwritten, in a blue exercise book), but I’ve never forgotten the hero, with his aura of constrained power and intense focus. Having the chance to reincarnate him in the form of brooding Argentinean Alejandro D’Arienzo was a bit like rediscovering my first love.

Rugby is such a hard, sexy game. It demands not only phenomenal physical strength (mmm…hold that thought…) but huge amounts of courage and mental endurance, which I think are all essential ingredients for the perfect hero. My heroine, Tamsin Calthorpe, would definitely agree; she lost her heart to Alejandro when she was just fifteen years old, the first time she set eyes on him out on the rugby pitch. Now, after nine lonely years, she’d actually quite like it back, so she can move on with her life… The trouble is, rugby players are also driven to win at all costs—and Alejandro’s not going to give up anything without a fight!

This book was such a lot of fun to write—especially the day I spent at Twickenham with two of the lovely editors from Mills & Boon, seeing some of the places that feature in the book. It was great for research, but not so good for my mud and muscle obsession. Oh, dear. Time to rush off for my meeting at Rugby Players Anonymous…

India